Archived News:

Tuesday, May 01, 2012 May Day

Blizzard announces a new Global Play functionality for Battle.net to allow Diablo III players to play on servers in different regions. They also announce a new Auction House Website for the action/RPG as home to the in-game auction functionality in the action/RPG sequel. This FAQ has all the details, including how the house rake will work:

In the gold-based auction house, a 15% transaction fee will be deducted from the final sale price of a successful auction.

In the real-money auction-house, for equipment such as weapons and armor, a fixed transaction fee will be deducted from the seller for each piece of equipment successfully sold. This fee is assessed only if the item is sold. For commodities such as crafting materials, gems, gold, and other “stackable” items, a 15% transaction fee will be deducted from the total sale price.
[…]
Note that additional fees apply for players who choose to receive the proceeds of their successful auction via PayPal™ (in regions where this option is available). See the Functionality section of this FAQ for further details.

Here is the new reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the next installment in the military shooter series that looks like it will indeed take place in the near future as rumored, as it shows off an insurrection against domestic automated military weapons that are now under enemy control, and it concludes with the tagline: The Future is Black." Continue here to read the full story.

505 Games announces the console editions of Sniper Elite V2 are now available in North American stores, offering the reboot of this third and first-person stealth/sharpshooting game. A Windows version along with the previously released playable demo are available through Steam, and here's word on the game:

Sniper Elite V2 places an emphasis on learning to handle the anticipation and pressure of the hunt and using skill, patience and cunning in order to achieve missions. Featuring detailed sniping simulation with advanced ballistics, gamers must use their environments and take into account gravity, wind, aim stability and more. The celebrated “kill cam” from Sniper Elite makes its return and is more gratifying than ever - skillfull shots are rewarded with a slow-motion sequence of the bullet running its full trajectory before the target is rendered in graphic x-ray detail, showing the bullet entering the body and causing lethal damage.

In addition to the single-player campaign, Sniper Elite V2 features two-player, online co-op in Kill Tally, Bombing Run, Overwatch and Campaign, where fans play through the single-player game with a friend.

The Bethesda Blog has a logo for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dawnguard, presumably DLC for Bethesda's RPG sequel. This is followed by a blurb saying "Coming this summer to Xbox 360. More details at E3." Presumably it is coming to the Windows and PS3 editions of the game as well. E3 2012 begins June 5th.

The Call of Duty Website still counts down to today's big reveal, but the U.K. version of the site confirms that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is the next installment in the military shooter series (thanks PC Gamer). They offer a couple of "coming soon" screenshots, and a worldwide reveal trailer that's listed as private on the YouTube end, so in the spirit of the Cold War theme of this arm of the series, we'll chalk that up to either top secrecy, or the work of double agents. The site also has a preorder link confirming a November 13, 2012 release for the console editions.

The Fullbright Company Website is home to a new game development studio started up by Steve Gaynor, Johnnemann Nordhagen, and Karla Zimonja (thanks MCV). Here's a bit on where they've been: "In the past our teammembers have worked in various capacities on BioShock 2, Minerva’s Den, XCOM, and BioShock Infinite. Our closest collaboration was on the small team responsible for the Minerva’s Den DLC for BioShock 2, of which Steve was the writer and design lead." And here's a bit on where they see themselves heading:

And basically, in our time apart after that project, we missed it. We missed working on a small team, on a small project, focused on telling a personal story in a player-driven way. We wanted to do that again. It was fun last time.

So we bailed out of corporate game development and reformed as an indie team, to see what we can do on our own. Well, ‘on our own’ is a big exaggeration. We’ll need lots of help from our talented friends who make amazing music and sound, and from environment artists who want to get involved in making our gameworld look mysterious and atmospheric and alive.

The goons on The Something Awful Forums have uncovered some, let's say irregularities in this Kickstarter proposal for a strategy RPG called MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men to be created by a developer called Little Monster Productions which claims to be composed of Activision/Blizzard veterans. An examination of their presentation makes it apparent that some of the art assets being presented as part of this project were lifted from other games, casting strong doubts on the claim that this project was nearly complete, and they just needed USD $80,000 "in order to secure the motion capture animation team and studio time for the games sound track," in spite of previously saying "animations will be done via motion capture thanks to some friends at Disney/Pixar" (the people who bragged about not using one frame of motion capture in Ratatouille). This seems to have derailed things, as the creators have cancelled the kickstart after attracting $4,739, which will not be collected since the "project" failed to reach its target. Thanks Joao via the redditors on Reddit by way of the roshambo upgraders on the RPS forums via the tasteful folks at PC Gamer.

This new trailer from Diablo III introduces the Wizard in Blizzard's upcoming action/RPG sequel. The clip includes cinematics, gameplay, and an imposing voiceover to explain the arcane power of this mystical class. Presumably the wizard's chirpy (if not twerpy) little voice is a spell so her enemies mistake her for Seong Mi-na or something. Continue here to read the full story.

Happy May Day. Here's hoping you enjoy dancing around the maypole or uniting with your coworkers or however you'd like to commemorate the occasion. The maypole thing would be a little soggy around here, as it's actually raining in what has been an unusually dry winter and spring. I guess this is something we'll have to get used to if we move, since as the old song says, it never rains in southern California.